Wow so our last blog was on the 4th of December 2010?! Can't believe where all the time has gone!! Since leaving Chiang Mai we've been touring about all over the place! We've spent two nights in a posh suite in Bangkok, drinking red wine, listening to Christmas music and having baths! Spent a night in a little town called Trat before catching the ferry to gorgeous Ko Chang, living in a beach bungalow and seeing for the first time how gorgeous the islands of Thailand really are. In total comparision to Ko Chang our next stop was Pattaya. Amazing night out on Walking Street but seeing it during the day you realise it's just like Benidorm but with loads of Thais and Russians. Couldn't wait to leave! It was back to Bangkok to supposedly catch the sleeper train then onto Samui.....

We're now in Ko Phangan, arrived here two days ago after spending a month in Ko Samui. Crazy times!! To be honest the crazy times started before we even made it to Samui! After catching the bus from Pattaya to Bangkok, spending two hours in a taxi in rush hour Bangkok traffic we made it to the train station. Bought our sleeper train tickets, which we were much excited about after having to get buses to and from Chiang Mai (Kings birthday, really?!). We're all sorted with our beers and snacks, ask which platform and get directed onto 'our train'. We get our shoes off, comfies on an are sorted for our 11 hour journey, when two guys show up with a ticket for the same seat. We tell them thats for the next train and off they go. Two minutes later and the same two guys are back with a conductor, we're told WE'RE ON THE WRONG TRAIN AND OUR TRAIN HAS ALREADY LEFT!!! What an absolute nightmare!! We're were absolutely raging and didn't hesitate in telling everyone who pointed us in the wrong direction how angry we were! Next thing to go wrong, there are no seats for the next sleeper train, or the sleeper trains the next day! In the end we had to take a night train, no beds, just old rickety seats, a few cockroaches here and there and try and get some sleep. I managed a few hours, Dean drank all the beers and had a little party to himself!

Our month in Samui seemed to last forever, it feels like months ago we were having Christmas dinner in Tropical Murphys and seeing in the New Year at the Full Moon on the island we're on now! It was great to catch up with Jackie again. Our first few nights were spent crashing on his sofas and drinking his bar dry! Actually most of our first two weeks were spent drinking his bar dry! We gave ourselves a break on Boxing Day and moved from Chaweng Beach to another part of the island, Bo Phut. A gorgeous little fishing village that if you could kick out some of the French I'd move to forever! We had booked a nice hotel before we set off on our travels so it was luxury, with a pool on the roof, for a few nights.

Our little bungalow we rented for the rest of our time in Samui was great for just over 6 pounds a night! It felt good to put our bags down and leave them for longer than a few nights. Although after a week or so I did feel like I was getting itchy feet and wanted to get back on the road again! We managed to put our Chiang Mai cooking course skills to the test and made Tom Yum soup (my fav!). As we all know Dean and I hate toms so we left them out. Needless to say our soup didn't look the colour it should have! There were plenty of chillies though so it tasted ok! It's weird how good it felt to waken up and make your own bowl of cereal. Tiny little things like that are what we seem to miss the most!

Two weeks into our months lease it was off back to Bangkok to meet Gemma & Mark. Finally we got on a sleeper train!!! :oD What an experience! We met Lisa & Greg from Aberdeen and Braden and Taya from Oz along the way. A Thai street meal and a few Changs later and we'd made our own little party carriage on the train!

It was great seeing two friendly faces from home! It's amazing how you can just pick up where you left off with good friends. The time we spent in Thailand with them was wild! Crashing hotel breakfast after partying in Bangkok til 7 in the morning, Ping Pong shows (really?!), pool crashing in Samui, renting buggies (and ours breaking down), pretending we're not backpackers and eating in nice restaurants, tasting Shark, Muay Thai fights and everything else that happened! Good times!

Like I said we're no in Ko Phangan, we left Samui on January 24th, it was definitely time to go. We had the most amazing time there but it's time to get back on the road and do what backpackers do best.........carry our backpacks!!

Lots of Love

Chelle & Dean xxx